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Italy's Aim 



In 



The World War 



BY 

HERBERT D. WARD 

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 



talian-Ameriean News Bureau. Chicago 



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2- 



* 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



By HERBERT D. WARD, 
National Press Club, Washington, D. C. 



Italy is new born out of blood tra- 
vail. It counts hardly half a century 
of life. Sixty years ago Austria oc- 
cupied five provinces — Italian in his- 
tory, in geography, in language and 
in the will of their inhabitants: Lom- 
bardy, Venetia, The Trentino, Julian 
Venetia and Dalmatia. Lombardy was 
restored to Italy in 1859 by the help of 
France. In 1866 Venetia was liber- 
ated. 

The young Kingdom, in 1914 about 
the size of the State of Arizona, with 
110,000 square miles of territory and 
a population of 36 million, found itself 
in its first years surrounded by a cor- 
don of hatred and jealousy. This last 
debutante in the society of European 
states, was disliked by France because 
Italian soldiers opposed French sold- 
iers who upheld the temporal power of 
the Pope. She was suspected by Ger- 
many because Garibaldi fought with 
France in 1871. She was hated by 
Austria — Austria the hovering hawk 
on the Italian Alps, because she wished 
to reconquer the two Italian provinces 
she had lost. 

In this dangerous isolation Italy had 
to have allies or be snuffed out, so 
she entered as third partner in the 
secret alliance concluded by Germany 
and Austria in 1879. This triple alli- 
ance was accepted by the Italian peo- 
ple as a humiliating necessity. It was 
the last resort to prevent a declaration 
of war on the part df Austria, and to 
secure a breathing peace. The seventh 
article which bound this paradoxical 
Trio together provided that absolute- 
ly no territorial change should be al- 
lowed in the Balkan peninsula without 
the reciprocal consent of the powers 



interested— namely, Austria and Italy 
Austria, by her attack upon Serbia in 
1914, not only acted against Italian in- 
terests, but also automatically annulled 
the secret treaty. Italy found herself 
righteously free and on August 2d, 
1914, three days before England de- 
clared war upon Germany, decided for 
neutrality. What a momentous deci- 
sion for France! At one o'clock the 
next morning the Italian Charge d'Af- 
faires in Paris received the news. He 
immediately hurried to Viviani, Presi- 
dent of the Council. Upon Italy's de- 
cision the fate of France depended. 
With unrestrained emotion the Presi- 
dent read the telegram. He immedi- 
ately ordered the mobilization of a 
million men from the southern fron- 
tiers on the German front. Italy's 
neutrality won the battle of the Marne 
and changed the history of the world. 
What did this decision mean for 
Italy ? 

It meant preparation for war. For 
in her renunciation of her part in the 
Triple Alliance, Italy pledged herself 
to act in the interests of the nation 
alone and in any way civilization 
should demand. Italy is Latin. France 
is Latin, and the Latin races have al- 
ways stood for international spiritual- 
ity as against Teuton brutality. The 
die was cast. Germany knew the logi- 
cal trend. Austria knew it and France 
and England knew it. Amid this new 
warfare of barbaric instruments, of 
a generation and a half of Teutonic 
intensive preparation Italy was al- 
most superhumanly handicapped. Italy 
had just emerged two years before 
from a disastrous war with Turkey, 
in which she had been betrayed by 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



Austria and Germany. She had only 
two large guns of Krupp make. The 
guns that France was forging for her 
were commandeered for French emerg- 
ency. She had no ammunition, no 
means of manufacturing any. In a 
military sense she was helpless, and 
to side with her future allies at that 
time would not only have been na- 
tional suicide, but would have serious- 
ly handicapped the allied cause. War 
industries, almost non-existent, had to 
be improvised. Stout hearts, stalwart 
men, had to be commandeered. Pa- 
triotism had to be fanned to white heat. 
The pro-Germanic pacifists, bribed 
by Von Buelow, had to be overcome. 
Italy began to seethe with idealism. 
Unconsciously, at first, then with na- 
tional conscience aglow, she was per- 
meated with the belief that armed neu- 
trality was a travesty at a time when 
the world was making its choice by 
nationalities whether right or might 
was the condition worth fighting for. 
"Is right more precious than peace?" 
was the question that men asked each 
other on the streets of Rome, Naples 
and Venice. This momentous question 
was answered in May, 1915, at a time 
when Russia was betrayed by the hire- 
lings of the Hun in Petrograd and 
when the Austrian armies were in vic- 
torious pursuit. This declaration of 
war against Austria, made when Italy 
was not yet ready to fight, made when 
a further delay might have proved fa- 
tal to her new allies, made at the 
psychological moment when France 
and England called upon her to come 
in if she possibly could, made when 
she was only half prepai'ed, created 
the second diversion that saved the 
day for civilization. It again proved 
that each heart in the Roman kingdom 
was indeed a champion for human 
right. 

Now, having entered the war, what 
did it mean to Italy ? 

It meant first the renunciation of the 
bribe offered by Austria for a con- 
tinued benevolent neutrality. When 
Von Buelow, a hitherto persona grata 
in the peninsula, hurried down to stiffen 
the vast system of Teuton intrigue 
that had permeated Italy during the 
thirty years of unnatural alliance, he 
presented the alluring vision of Malta, 
Nice, Corsica and Tunis under Italian 
rule. But Austrian diplomacy went 
further. To compensate for the viola- 
tion of the agreement as to the Balkan 



equilibrium, contained in the seventh 
article of the treaty, it conceded as the 
price for marking time : 

1. The relinquishment of the great- 
er part of the Trentino. 

2. The adjustment of the eastern 
frontier in favor of a portion of the 
strategic requirements of Italy. 

3. The proclamation of Trieste as 
a free city. 

4. The possible surrender of certain 
islands on the Dalmatian coast. 

5. The withdrawal of Austria from 
Albanian affairs, and the recognition 
of Italian sovereignty in Vallona. 

But Italy was not to be bribed. Bel- 
gium had shown her in what high re- 
gard the Prussian Empire held treat- 
ies, and Austria had demonstrated in 
Serbia how sacred they were to her. 
These vague promises might be bait for 
gudgeon, but not for Italy, even if 
she had not been moved by the stifled 
cries of tortured humanity. She cast 
these bribes into the Teuton's teeth. 

In 1912 Italy sold to the Central 
Empires 384 millions of lire of her 
excess productions. Neutrality could 
have doubled and tripled that revenue 
and made Italy rich. Italian agricul- 
turalists did not hesitate to make the 
decision that impoverished them. It 
meant to Italy the assumption of an 
enormous debt. Up to the first of 
May, 1917, the war cost Italy 18.5 bil- 
lions of lire. Since then the war has 
cost the nation a little over one billion 
a month. It meant the loss of 4 billion 
lire of German gold with which that 
industrial nation had for years forged 
the missing links in the successive 
processes of production and which she 
immediately withdrew, leaving behind 
worthless paper and national disor- 
ganization which resulted in the ser- 
ious depreciation of the lire on ex- 
change. That alone was a commercial 
catastrophe little understood in this 
country, and which will revive after 
the war unless American or English 
capitalists take the place of German 
economic expansion. It meant the 
creation of military establishments and 
arsenals, 66 in number that employ 
35,000 hands. Private auxiliary es- 
tablishments were created under di- 
rect government supervision number- 
ing 950 with 400,000 hands; and also 
1,200 other factories engaged in pro- 
ducing war material, employing 35,000 
hands. As the best men had been 
called to the colors, the great majority 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



of these hands had to be intensively 
trained in improvised schools. As Italy 
produces no coal, and has to import 
10 million tons a year at a price 100 
per cent higher than five years ago, 
the price Italy pays for war is not 
small. 

Now the world asks the question. 
"For what purpose did Italy go into 
this war?" 

The fundamental reason for Italy's 
entering the war against the Central 
powers was that it is a war of demo- 
cratic liberty, or national independence 
and of a humane civilization. The 
cleavage between the spirit of the Ital- 
ian and that of the Hun is as sharp as 
it is between the American and the 
Hun, only the inhabitants of the United 
States have not personally experienced 
Teuton barbarity until within a year. 
In 1821 the Italian nation had become 
to all intents and purposes a secret 
society, sworn to resist all attempts at 
Germanization that Austria was forc- 
ing with physical and commercial 
murder upon the stricken people. The 
Italian watchwords were at that time 
"Away with the Barbarians!" "Death 
to the Germans!" Italy has not forgot- 
ten this. Outside of Italy, students 
of history know little of Austrian bar- 
barity in that country. In the 19th 
century Austria's method of civilizing 
conquered Italy consisted of rape, 
soaking their victims in turpentine and 
burning them alive, crucifying child- 
ren, burying patriots alive in quick- 
lime, and countless murders for the 
most trivial causes. Italy has not for- 
gotten these. It was most natural that 
she should side with Right against 
Might. So natural was it that before 
she entered the war thousands volun- 
teered over the French bolder to fight 
their hereditary enemy. Then Italian 
martyrdom began to tell. These dead 
heroes inspired by the spirit of Gari- 
baldi, enflamed the Italian populace to 
white heat. To them the unspeakable 
atrocities committed in Belgium became 
a clear vision. Had they not suffered 
like horrors of devilish government in 
Lombardy and Venitia, martyrdom in 
Dalmatia, untold cruelties in every por- 
tion of unredeemed Italy? No great- 
er spiritual indignation ever swept a 
nation into war, not even the Ameri- 
can nation, than that expressed by the 
common Italian people when with the 
battle cry of "Right against Might" 
they cried for war and stormed the 



Austrian Alps. Our own war psy- 
chology interprets the depth of the 
Italian feeling. Italy entered the war 
with as high altruistic ideals as did 
the United States, but with an ex- 
perience and knowledge of what the 
Hun is that we did not possess. She 
entered with purely humanitarian im- 
pulses. 

But when in the war, Italy could 
not renounce her national egoism. 
Aside from her purely altruistic mo- 
tives that governed her emotions, there 
poised steadfast before her vision the 
second principle that President Wilson 
laid down in his speech at a joint ses- 
sion of the two houses of Congress on 
February 11, 1918, a principle that 
meant to Italy her national existence. 
To ignore that fundamental principle 
of national unity would make Italy a 
traitor to herself. President Wilson 
said: 

"Second — That peoples and prov- 
inces are not to be bartered about from 
sovereignty to sovereignty as if they 
were mere chattels and pawns in a 
game, now forever discredited, of the 
balance of power; but that 

"Third — Every territorial settlement 
involved in this war must be made in 
the interests and for the benefit of the 
populations concerned, and not as a 
part of any mere adjustment or com- 
promise of claims amongst rival 
states." 

This principle of national determina- 
tion is accepted by Italy as her second- 
ary and yet most vital aim in this 
world war. Her claims are geographi- 
cal, ethnological, defensive, clear, ir- 
refutable. Let us see what they are: 

In 1851 Lord Palmerston, in a note 
of protest against the German Con- 
federation, because, asserting a claim 
to the basin of the Adige, it wanted 
"to add countries geographically di- 
vided from Germany," asserted in the 
face of Europe this static principle 
"Italy to the Brenner Alps." 

In his memoirs Napoleon wrote: 
"Italy is bounded by the Alps and the 
sea; her natural limits are defined with 
as much precision as though she were 
an island." The summits of the Alps, 
forming a convex natural barrier 
? round tVie peninsula, beginning at 
Ventimiglia, taking in Piedmont and 
Lombardy, gradually sloping down 
through Friuli, Istria and Dalmatia. 
were the natural boundaries assigned 
by the ancient Romans to their land. 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



They are as natural a boundary line 
as the Pyrrenees are to France and 
Spain, as the Andes are to Chile and 
Argentina. These summits divide the 
watersheds. On the northern side the 
tributaries of the Danube and the 
Rhine have their rise; on the southern 
side the Tessin, the Oglio, the Adda, 
Adige, the Brenta, the Piave and many 
other Italian streams and rivers have 
their birth. With the Alps as Italy's 
natural and geographical frontier, she 
is protected from invasion in that there 
are only three or four passes through 
which a foreign army could descend 
upon the plains. These passes can 
easily be fortified against invasion. An 
army corps is enough to guard them 
all. As it is, the great Austrian tri- 
angle in the Trentino slices into the 
throat of Italy and opens upon Italy at 
least thirty doors of attack. The main 
avenues of military descent are 
through Stelvio, past Giudicaria, by 
the Adige, past Ala, to the west of 
Asiago, and in the northeast between 
Bolsano and Brixen, to the Piave, men- 
acing Venice.* At the present hour in 
every valley Austria holds the highest 
positions which she has strongly for- 
tified, while Italy holds the lowlands, 
difficult to defend. Such a situation 
is impossible to a nation inheriting 
centuries of servitude and suffering, 
but with no loss of patriotic zeal to 
recover her boundaries and to effect 
her political union. 

But Italy not only aspires to front- 
iers bounded geographically by the 
Alps, but the greater part of her 
frontiers are bounded by the 'sea. 
While Italy's head may be said to lift 
itself proudly towards the Alps, her 
lungs are the Adriatic and the Tyr- 
rhenian seas. It needs only one glance 
at the map to see that without the 
Dalmatian coast and the Cursolaria 
Islands the whole Italian coast line is 
as exposed to invasion as at Brescia, 
Verona and Venice with Austria domi- 
nating the Trentino. The whole Ital- 
ian coast line from Venice to Otranto is 
low lying, without ports, anchorage or 
shelter from the north wind. Venice 
and Brindisi are her only ports, and 
these lie 1,300' kilometers apart. 
Moreover, neither is practicable for 
the modern superdreadnaught. The 
Cursolari Islands are nature's bridge 
between Dalmatia and Italy. Each 
peak is a signaling station. Behind 
each island lies a natural harbor, a 



deep lurking base. The Dalmatian 
coast is like gigantic granite lace with 
hundreds of harbors, ports of refuge, 
natural bases of assault. The Adri- 
atic is now an Austrian sea because 
Austria possesses the only natural 
bases that are each and all Italian in 
tradition, inheritance and sentiment. 

Italy's aspirations in this war are not 
for conquest, but for the freedom of 
enslaved European nations and notably 
for her own. But she cannot aspire to 
national freedom without possessing 
the means of national safety. This the 
invaders of a hundred years have 
filched from her. It is not a question 
of conquest, but of national right and 
security. It is not natural that Italy 
having gone to war would be content to 
receive as the price of her spilled blood 
less than Austria offered as a bribe for 
benevolent neutrality. She scorned the 
bribe, but will demand the same as her 
inalienable right. So much in brief in 
regard to Italy's essential boundaries; 
but what of Italian Irredenta? 

I will first consider the Trentino, 
which geographically includes to the 
north of it the upper Adige. Napoleon, 
in creating an Italic Kingdom included 
with its borders the Trentino and the 
Department of the Haut Adige, bord- 
ered by the crest of the Alps. This 
region reverted to the Austrians after 
his work was undone. This province is 
to Italy what Alsace and Lorraine are 
to France. The Trentino is the south- 
ern part of the mountainous basin of 
the Adige. It includes the broad lat- 
eral valleys that are historical feeders 
to the city of Trent. This ancient prin- 
cipality is, and always has been the 
centi'e of Italian language and senti- 
ment within the whole territory of 
6,330 square kilometers. The official 
Austrian census asknowledged this fact 
when it reported that out of 380,000 in- 
habitants 370,000 were Italians. In 
cities and towns where there were no 
garrisons, only one per cent were of 
alien Germanic blood. As a province 
Trentino has never ceased to revolt 
against its Austrian rulers and to turn 
its eyes southward for liberation. 

Owing to the fact that the northern 
part of the Trentino, the Upper Adige, 
lies in a mountainous strategical posi- 
tion, next to the Austrian natural bor- 
der, alien infiltration has been per- 
sistent and overwhelming. Chains of 
fortresses were built and manned. 
Cities and towns and passes were oc- 



*This was written prior to the Italian Drive of November, 1918, which crushed Austria, driving her from Italy, redeem- 
ing the Italian Irredenta," and resulting in the capitulation of Germany a few days later. 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



cupied. Previous to the war 180,000 
Germans occupied the territory to 
forty or fifty thousand Italians. And 
yet that enslaved region was not Ger- 
manized in language. Romanized for 
two thousand years, even conquest 
could not overcome either the native 
tongue or native aspirations. Taking 
the Haut Adige and Trentino as a 
whole, as it naturally is, three quarters 
of its whole nationality is Italian and 
belongs by boundary, blood and right 
to Italy. 

If I had space I could write pages 
of the fair cities, picturesque towns 
in that great captured triangle known 
to geographers as Venetia Triden- 
tina. Each offers irrefutable claims 
to be part of its motherland in 
architecture, customs and speech. Ro- 
vereto and Riva have that exquisite 
character peculiar to Venice. Italian- 
ism breathes in each school, in the 
facial lines of houses and churches, in 
the unmistakable art of Ala, Arco, 
Cavalese, Predazzo, and a hundred 
other tiny cities of the Trentino. Each 
an Italian picture of its own. 

From behind the veil of Austrian lies 
the average tourist looked upon the fair 
region as the "Southern Tyrol." Bae- 
deker is German. It was only thought- 
ful historic insight and also the war 
that could uncover a deathless, ever- 
revolting Italian nationalism that 
prayed and schemed for freedom from 
its hereditary oppressors. And now 
the hour has struck. The intellectual 
and political aspirations of the Tren- 
tino, hitherto suffocated, will have their 
full reward. Patriots, familiar with 
torture and dungeons will know the 
Austrian no more as an interloper, but 
only as an undesirable neighbor beyond 
the Alps. The Trentino and the Upper 
Adige will naturally revert to Italy not 
as a price of war, but as a restitution. 

Italy has no thirst for conquest, but 
like a Roman mother, she will gather 
back to her bosom her children who 
through years of uncounted misery 
have bewailed their separation. After 
a thousand years of Austrian domina- 
tion, in spite of persistent Germaniza- 
tion, in spite of centuries of despair, 
in spite of the wearing down of the 
fine edge of sentiment, we have a peo- 
ple clamoring for the right of a free 
choice to be admitted into the Roman 
family. They cry that the monstrous 
weight of centuries of slavery be for- 
ever lifted. By the cataracts of the 



Adige bounding toward the sun, by 
the prayers of an enslaved people, by 
the justice that will be dealt out when 
this war is won, this reparation will 
be accomplished. 

I will now consider Julian Venitia, 
which includes within its borders the 
question of Eastern Friuli, Gorizia, 
Trieste and Istria. The last river that 
rises from the gorges of the eastern 
end of the Alps, and defines her nat- 
ural limits is the Isonzo, which empties 
into the Gulf of Trieste. 

This river receives on its left bank 
two tributaries, the Idria and the Vip- 
acco, whose sources determine the nat- 
ural eastern boundaries of northern 
Italy. The territory within these two 
tributaries includes the scene of some 
of the fiercest and most violent fight- 
ing in this war. It takes in the pla- 
teau of the Carso, the towns of Tol- 
mino, Canale, Gorizia, Gradisca, Mon- 
tefalcone, Aquileia, Grado and San Gio- 
vanni — all Italian in name, architecture 
and feeling. To the north, in the Jul- 
ian Alps, are the two mountain passes, 
almost impossible to storm, easy to 
defend, through which the Austrian 
hoi'des made their inroads — the Plezzo 
pass, known as the "Key to Italy," and 
eastward, the Prevaldo pass called 
"The Main Gate of Italy." Only a 
predetermined foe or conqueror could 
refuse this defensive Italian land to its 
mother state. 

Since 1500 Gorizia and Aquileia, the 
mother of Venice, have been under 
foreign rule. Both from their earliest 
history are basically Italian. After 
four centuries of annexation they are 
as Italian in language, sentiment and 
architecture as Rome. The whole ter- 
ritory of Friuli, the plain of Carso and 
Istria were Roman two hundred years 
before Christ. It was under the dom- 
ination of the Venitian Republic and 
the Patriarchs of Aquileia before the 
Hapsburgs filched it. Auerbach well 
put the case when he said: "Venice, by 
her civilization, and her arts, has im- 
planted Italianism all along the eastern 
facade of the Adriatic." All this re- 
gion, including Trieste and its terri- 
tory, Goritz and Gradisca, and Istria 
have 872,000 inhabitants, of which, in 
spite of all Austrian disguises, 358,000, 
or 43 Der cent, claim Italian nation- 
ality. The balance is divided between 
267^000 Slovenes and 171,000 Serbo- 
Croats, who by their diversity and the 
fact that they were to a great extent 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



forced immigrants, can in no way 
counter balance the intellectual or 
economic influence of the Italian ele- 
ments. 

The United States, through its mem- 
bers of Congress, elected by the free 
American people have declared that 
Austria, the catspaw of Germany must 
be destroyed. President Wilson has in- 
dicated that she must be dismembered. 
As important as Antwerp to Belgium 
is the port of Trieste to Italy. Ger- 
many has long schemed for Trieste 
as an integral part of her political and 
economic conquest of the Levant and 
the far East. As a port Austria has 
made comparatively little use of it. 
As a political bridgehead it is vital to 
Austria in her domination of the Ad- 
riatic. The question is to be met fair- 
ly. Is the Adriatic to be an Austrian 
or an Italian sea when the war is 
over ? If Austrian, then Italy has shed 
her blood in vain. Only 27 per cent of 
Austrian maritime trade has passed 
through Trieste to 63 per cent through 
Hamburg and Bremen. Through it 
only 21 per cent of the total imports 
passed and 18 per cent of the exports. 

It is not for commercial purposes, but 
for an ambitious Teutonic policy to 
menace Italy and control the Mediter- 
ranean that Austria holds this import- 
ant base. After centuries of alien dom- 
ination, independent fighting, freedom, 
the reversion to Austria in 1815 
through the Congress of Vienna, Tri- 
este has maintained a living, aggres- 
sive hostility to Germanization. Ex- 
amples of this hatred might be quoted 
by the score. The Italian flag has 
never been concealed in Trieste. When 
in 1869 the new Italian kingdom was 
born, the inhabitants of Trieste pro- 
claimed to Victor Emmanuel that all 
united Italians "Should have constantly 
before their eyes and in their hearts 
the cause of their brothers, deprived 
of the joys of freedom." 

The last census of 1810 proves the 
Italian nationality of the city. There 
were 118,959 Italians and 29,439 Ital- 
ian citizens, to 11,856 Germans, 56,- 
916 Slovenes and 2,403 Serbo-Croats. 
Since 1866 Austria has flooded this 
Adriatic littoral with Slavs and Slov- 
enes in her attempt at denaturing the 
original Italian element. To sub- 
merge latinism by shameless and forced 
immigration has been her base policy. 
She has done to the Littoral what Ger- 
many did to Alsace and Lorraine. She 



superimposed the Slavic tongue as the 
official language. She subsidized Slavic 
schools. She altered Italian names on 
civil registers. Even the clergy was 
ordered to introduce the Slavic liturgy 
in the churches; but this the Pope re- 
fused to sanction. These peasants, im- 
ported from Carniolia, from Styria, 
from Carinthia, fishermen and tillers of 
the soil, of intelectual inferiority, have 
through military force and iniquitious 
law assumed an economic and political 
preponderance over the Istrian penin- 
sula. It is as if the Italian settlement 
of 600,000 in New York City or the 
1,500,000 Hebrews were to assume the 
hegemony of the state. The absolute 
"Slavization" of the government offi- 
ces in Trieste and in all the cities of 
the Julian region, completed the final 
enslavement of the Italian population. 
This artificial infiltration imposed upon 
this whole territory so infuriated the 
native element that when Italy enter- 
ed the war thousands of the irreden- 
tists from Friuli, Gorizia, Istria and 
Trieste deserted into Italy and enlisted 
en masse. Since the war began Aus- 
tria has imposed over three hundred 
death sentences in Trieste alone. The 
whole Julian region has given more 
heroes and martyrs to the cause of 
freedom than any other part of Italy. 

The three ports, Venice, Trieste, 
Fiume, control the strategical future 
and economic life of the Latin sea. 
Two of these are still Austrian. Which 
is the natural maratime power — Aus- 
tria or Italy? Which is the nation of 
sailors? Which nation represents the 
freedom of the seas, the international 
opportunity of commerce ? The nation 
that possesses Trieste and Fiume is 
mistress of the Adriatic. 

Fiume lies within the Julian Alps, 
that natural boundary that terminates 
near Portori, opposite the island of 
Veglia. For many centuries it has been 
an international football, tossed from 
one ownership to another. The town 
itself is old Roman and was destroyed 
by Charlemagne. It was once a fief of 
the Patriarchate of Aquileia. It be- 
longed to Venice for one year. Final- 
ly it went over to the control of Aus- 
tria. Maria Teresa in 1776 made it a 
present to Hungary. In 1848 the Croa- 
tions took possession. Again it was 
restored to Hungary, and today it is 
governed by "provisional statute" 
whatever that may mean. No one 
knows to whom at the present time 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



this property of several square kilo- 
meters belongs. But we do know, that 
in spite of all barterings, vicissitudes, 
this plaything of the powers has re- 
tained its Italian character. It has 
ever aspired to be a part of the Italian 
kingdom. Of its diverse population, 
sixty-five per cent are Italian, and a 
plebiscite would quickly decide the na- 
tional determination of the city. 

And yet Italy recognizes that the 
only legitimate claim besides hers is 
Croatian. This small country of a popu- 
lation of a little over two and a half 
millions calls for a port of outlet. 
Were the future independence of Croa- 
tia assured, even then she would be 
demanding a strategical position out 
of all proportion to her real needs. 
In 1912 the total imports and exports 
out of the harbor of Fiume reached 
a total of 3,882,103 tons, of which 
Croatia was only responsible for four 
per cent. 

There are only two routes from 
central Europe to the East, that 
golden East that is the vision of the 
Tuetonic Empire. The one crosses the 
Balkan penninsula, and either through 
Solonika or Constantinople becomes 
the Berlin-Bagdad express. The other 
leads through Trieste or Fiume, via 
the Adriatic. The United States has 
vowed to shatter this Germanic dream. 

Fiume can never again belong to Aus- 
tria, nor to Croatia, unable to defend 
its vast opportunity. It must either be 
a part of Italy or become a free port. 
If the Allies, at the peace table, bar- 
ring all Teutonic outlet on the Adria- 
tic, should decide this momentous ques- 
tion in the favor of a free port, as 
Constantinople should be, then I do not 
think that Italy would say "Nay". 
If a popular vote of Fiume should de- 
cide this question, there would be only 
one patriotic answer. It is to be re- 
membered that Croatia has already a 
port in Segna, 50 kilometers south of 
Fiume, that could more than meet 
the demands of Croatian shipping. 
Italy will never dispute Croatia's right 
to an outlet on the sea. When the war 
is over, the Adriatic will have its just 
rulers. With them Italy will join hands 
in a common purpose to maintain the 
right of national aspirations. But 
whatever happens Trieste and Fiume 
must be eternally protected from the 
Hun. Italy will protect Trieste. She 
can protect Fiume. So can the allied 



powers in making it a free port, if 
they so determine. 

The coast state of Dalmatia is sep- 
arated geographically from Bosnia and 
Herzegovina by the Dinaric Alps. This 
natural barrier is an extension of the 
Julian Alps and, therefore, the direct 
geological continuation of the preal- 
pine zone of the Venetian Alps. Moun- 
tain ranges are the natural political 
frontiers of nations. Physical geogra- 
phy has been recognized as a final 
argument in adjudicating disputed 
boundry lines. But, besides this un- 
answerable physical fact, Dalmatia has 
been Roman for 2,000 years, since 
Octavius"civilized" the brigand Illir- 
ians who occupied this coast country. 
Dalmatia subsequently gave to Rome 
four emperors. One of these, Diocle- 
tian, founded Spalato, the most im- 
pregnable harbor on the Dalmatian 
coast. Indeed this littoral fairly ex- 
hales Roman life. Why should it not 
after eighteen hundred years of Italian 
life ? As I write I have before me 
photographs of Roman ruins, Roman 
palaces, Roman domes, Roman arches 
surmounted by the winged lions of 
the Republic of Venice, lions which the 
barbarians could not wholly subdue, 
only mutilate. 

Here is the cathedrial at Severnico, 
the palace of Diocletian at Spalato, 
the palace of the Rectors at Ragusa. 
Dalmatia gave to Italy Fortunio, its 
first grammarian; Elio Saraca, the 
great Italian physician of the Seven- 
teenth Century, Ugo Foscolo, one 
of Italy's greatest poets, and the 
works of the notable architect, Georg- 
io Orsini. For centuries Italy bound 
Dalmatia to western civilization, nor 
will she renounce the fruits of her art, 
her genius, her centuries of intellect- 
ual overlordship for the mere fact that 
of 620,000 mixed inhabitants 160,000 
are Italians with their hearts fixed on 
Rome. These are the original proprie- 
tors of the land, inheritors of the spirit 
of Italy. Shall the spirit of the Kaiser 
working through his subject, the 
Croates, the spirit of vindictive denat- 
uralization, or that of Italy, the liber- 
ator, rule this important line of coast? 
Civilization sees only one possible an- 
swer. 

I do not need to mention again the 
strategic importance of Dalmatia. The 
key of the Adriatic is Cattaro. This 
commands the Dalmatian archipelago, 



10 



ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR 



which commands Pola, which in turn 
commands Trieste. There can never be 
peace with two masters in the Adria- 
tic. The power that possesses the east- 
ern coast is lord of the western coast. 
Tallyrand affirmed this self evident 
fact. Without the complete control of 
the Adriatic, Italy is a suppliant slave. 

Nor does she ask more than to round 
out her little kingdom to its natural, 
geographical borders that I have des- 
cribed in order that, like Switzerland, 
she may be strong and independent of 
the whims of border powers. Even 
then the kingdom will have no more 
territory than the states of Arizona 
and Rhode Island combined. Is this 
imperialism ? Can hostile propaganda 
in these United States fool a fair 
minded people by the claim that 
Italy went into this war from im- 
perialistic motives, when she went in 
to liberate, not to enslave; to free her 
own people agonizing under the heel 
of a predatory and brutal govern- 
ment? A plain statement of fact is 
enough to disconcert the Hun. I abso- 
lutely deny any existence whatsoever 
of the least taint of conquest in any of 
the Italian aims for entering this war. 
As I said at the beginning, imperial- 
ism grows on conquest and exists on 
despotism. There can be no empire 
making without these two basic qual- 
ifications. Italy only wishes to gather 
under her wings her brood of stolen 
chicks, beaten, starving, poor little 
plucked provinces, and mother them in- 
to strength and happiness. How das- 
tardly to call that maternal longing 
imperialistic ! 

President Wilson's words reverber- 
ate in Italian ears. "The Battle Hymn 
of the Republic" rings in every soldier's 
ears. We are willing, if need be, to 
send then millions of fighters ifco- 
Europe to make men free. Belgium, 
France, Serbia, Roumania, are not the 
only nations enslaved by the Hun. 
Italy is one, as much so as France; 
and the restoration of Italia Irredenta 
and the strategic coast of the north- 
ern Adriatic to Italy is as much a sac- 
red promise of the United States as it 
is a national Italian necessity. 

Compared with England, France, 
and even the United States, Italy can- 
not be said to have a colonial empire. 
Great Britan with an island popula- 



tion of a little over 46 millions, holds 
two dependencies in Europe, 11 in Asia, 
19 in Africa, 23 in America and 10 in 
Australasia, with a total population 
of 437,947,432 within 13,745,766 square 
miles of territory. France with a popu- 
lation of 47,830,581 administers col- 
onies with a population of 47,830,581 
and 4,776,032 square miles of terri- 
tory. The colonies of the United States 
have a population of 9,138,006 with 
125,344 square miles of territory. The 
Philippines are densely populated. Ger- 
many held colonies in Africa with a 
population of 13,419,500 and 931,460 
square miles, and in Asia with a popu- 
lation of 168,900 and 200 square miles. 
This she filched from China. On the 
Pacific she had 96,160 square miles of 
islands with a population of 357,800. 

Italy's total colonial possessions lie 
in Africa. These are Lybia (including 
Tripolitania and Cirenaica), Erithrea 
and Somaliland. Owing to its barbaric 
nature the size and population of the 
latter is unknown. Lybia has a popula- 
tion of about a million. Its size is ap- 
proximately 1,033,000 square kilomet- 
ters. Erithrea has a population of 2,- 
830,000 with an approximate area of 
1,160,000 square kilometers. Italy can- 
not be called in any sense a land grab- 
ber, for the greater part of her colonial 
territory is wild, underpeopled, bar- 
baric, unproductive. Her colonies are 
a liability, not an asset. 

I have given these dry figures so 
that at a glance the charge of imper- 
ialism, outside of her borders, as with- 
in, could be disproved. The spirit of 
modem Rome is to civilize, not to tor- 
ture, to free, not to enslave. If it 
should happen that at the peace table a 
new colonial distribution should take 
place, a new adjustment of territories 
should be made, Italy will accept her 
share without making a demand. To 
believe for a moment that the Hun 
should ever be allowed again to ex- 
ploit, flay, murder helpless nations is 
to deny the part of the United States 
as a spiritual belligerent in this war. 
Italy yields to none of her allies in 
her unselfish participation. She will 
spend her last drop of blood, her last 
lire to cut ont the claws of the German 
beast that Europe may be free. This 
Freedom must include herself. 



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